Coates Joseph Gordon Matatoke Northland Nz 1899 1914

edmondsallan - Hello -Joseph - was also showing a capacity to lead men; in 1900 he joined, and soon led, the Otamatea Mounted Rifle Volunteers. He commanded B squadron of the 11th (North Auckland) Mounted Rifles from March 1911 to May 1912, when he transferred to the reserve of officers. In November 1905, after his father's death, Coates was elected to the Otamatea County Council, and from 1913 to 1916 was its chairman. His local authority experience taught him administrative skills and he learned much about roading that was later to stand him in good stead.

Coates was what used to be called 'a man's man', yet his appearance and pleasant manners also made him very attractive to women. He fell in love with a young teacher whose father forbade marriage in case Edward's psychiatric illness should prove hereditary. For several years Coates enjoyed a relationship with a local Maori woman, by whom he is said to have had a daughter and a son. When he entered Parliament in 1911 the relationship seems to have ended, and the surviving daughter went to live with her Maori relatives. On 4 August 1914 Coates, now 36, married Marjorie Grace Coles at Wellington. Marjorie was 13 years younger than him, a good dancer, pretty, vivacious and always well dressed. She adored Coates, whom she called 'Joe', and she gave birth to five daughters over the next decade before the onset of painful arthritis. He was fond of her, wrote regularly when away on political duties, and always contrived to spend as much time as possible with his family, sometimes at great personal inconvenience. Rumours about Coates's 'other life', however, circulated for the rest of his life.

Coates won the parliamentary seat of Kaipara on the second ballot on 14 December 1911. He was to represent it until his death. He was initially an independent Liberal who had the backing of many local opposition supporters. He was pledged to supporting Sir Joseph Ward, and on a motion of no confidence in Ward's government in February 1912 Coates voted with the Liberals, helping them to hold on to office by the barest margin. Coates was offered a ministerial position in the restructured Liberal ministry that followed Ward's resignation in favour of Thomas Mackenzie. He declined. Over the next three months he drifted away from the Liberals because of the dominance of leasehold advocates within Mackenzie's ministry. When another confidence vote was taken in early July 1912, Coates again voted with the winning team, William Ferguson Massey's Reform Party, who were pledged to the maintenance of freehold land tenure. By 1914 Coates had joined the Reform Party and become their official candidate in Kaipara. Till we meet again - Regards - edmondsallan